


hersey.

by captainharkness



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Mythology - Freeform, Religion, noah fence but elizabeth swann is god and you cant tell me otherwise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2020-04-07 23:52:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19095523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainharkness/pseuds/captainharkness
Summary: Elizabeth Swann has always had a touch of the divine about her.





	1. will turner

For all of her life that she could remember, Elizabeth had regarded the swaying of a ship at sea to be peaceful. Her father had remarked, more than once, than as a baby, the only way for the nursemaid to get her to sleep was to rock her backwards and forwards like a boat, allowing her to watch the tide come in through her bedroom window. But now, the burning wreck just above deck, and a ghost ship that no one else saw, it just seemed a terrible reminder of how delicate a ship could be. 

_ Respect the sea, and the sea will respect you _ , Mister Gibbs had always told her. She thought it was a funny saying, because the sea could surely not care one bit whether or not she respected it. It didn’t seem funny now. Elizabeth looked back at her charge, surely no more than a year her senior. For him, she thought of the sea lapping at the hull of the ship just feet away from her, and asked, most politely, if she might deliver a strong wave to help steer them in the right direction, away from pirates.

Maybe the boy had not respected the sea, or his captain had not. Maybe that was why the sea had delivered them to the depths.

She looked down at him, skin pale from the cold water even though he’d been changed into dry clothes and wrapped in a spare blanket. His cheekbones were pronounced, hair dark even as it dried. By all accounts, he looked English, and not at all like someone who had spent very long at sea. Not the sort of pirate she had imagined meeting. Plainly dressed with not a single scrap of gold on him, save for the necklace. All in all, a very disappointing first meeting.

A soft gasp brought her attention back to his face as he seemingly spluttered out the last of the water in his lungs.

He started trying to haul himself up on his elbows, but her father had given her strict instructions to keep him from moving around too much, so she pushed him gently back down.

“Lie down,” she instructed gently, “Trust me, you need to rest.”

Will looked around blearily, eyes unfocussed until they settled on her.

“Where am I?”

“You’re onboard  _ The Dependance _ , it’s an English navy ship bound for Port Royal from London,” she explained slowly.

Will took a few shallow breaths, “Port Royal?”

“Yes,” she nodded, “in Jamaica. I’ve never been, but my father says it’s beautiful. And so warm. And that fruit grows along the street, and you can simply reach up and pluck it to eat, better than anything from English markets-”

“I’m not dead?” 

Elizabeth paused, “No, you’re not dead. Why would you think you were dead?”

But Will’s eyes were already slipping shut again, rolling back into his head. One hand came up limply to rest on her forearm where she sat on the edge of the cot, making her jump.

“Thought I saw an angel.”

The words were so faint she almost missed them as he slipped back into unconsciousness, hand still draped across her arm, his shallow breathing just audible over the ruckus above deck, and the mercifully calm water lapping at the sides of the ship.


	2. hector barbossa

Elizabeth was painfully aware of the captain’s gaze as he watched her pace the length of the deck. It wasn’t long since sunrise, the air still slightly chilled from the night, one of the throws from her room wrapped around her shoulders. A few members of the crew were still around from the night shift, leering at her as she passed, but the worst of the tormenting had passed.

She had sailed on the Black Pearl for just over a week, and more than anything, she was bored. Barbossa had a hearty collection of books aboard, but with nothing to do or anyone to talk to, she had grown weary. Even the antics of the crew had ceased. Whether the captain had warned them off of her, or they simply grew fed up after she stopped reacting, she wasn’t sure. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Barbossa watching her again from where he stood at the wheel.

“How much longer until we reach your bloody treasure?” she snapped out of pure frustration. If he was surprised at her outburst, it didn’t show on his face, “It cannot possibly be much further.”

He raised a single eyebrow lazily, “Join me, Miss Turner. See the sea as I see her.”

She wanted to refuse, on principle. But to stand at the wheel of a ship, of a pirate ship, arguably  _ the _ pirate ship… her feet led her up the stairs before she could even reasonably consider his offer. Elizabeth damned herself for her own enthusiasm.

It was a hell of a view. The sky painted in pale blue and orange and pink, the moon still peeking out through the colours, the sun reflected in the rippling water. It was like sailing into a painting, a rainbow, or right into Heaven with the devil at her shoulder.

“What makes you think we’d be so stupid as to hide the greatest pirate treasure less than a weeks sail from the biggest English and Spanish colonies in the Caribbean?” 

She looked at him, keeping her face blank, “I think the logical place to hide it would be difficult to navigate, far away from the English navy and somewhere completely uncharted.”

“Aye,” he nodded, with a sly smile, “you’re right.”

“The problem with uncharted places, Captain, is that someone always finds them, because they don’t know not to sail there,” she continued, ignoring him, “and if I was in the Royal Navy, looking for the greatest pirate treasure, I would search for unoccupied, hard to reach places first.”

Barbossa levelled her with a hard to read look, before nodding, “Continue.”

Swallowing, Elizabeth grit her teeth, “You’d want the treasure somewhere close by so that when you found the final piece, you could get to it as soon as possible. You all speak English, so you obviously dominate the waters around the Caribbean where the most English colonies are. Which means half your crew are probably Navy deserters, and know full well where the Navy would search first.”

A cruel smile formed on Barbossa’s face, “Meaning?”

“The treasure is closer to Port Royal than you’re telling me. Where are we going?” she demanded.

Barbossa’s face split even wider with a grin full of rotten teeth. The few crew members around them started to laugh with him, making Elizabeth shiver even as the air warmed with the rising sun.

“Miss Turner, you would make a mighty fine pirate, you know that?” he drawled, running a wrinkled finger down her cheek. She forced herself not to flinch, “You’re right, somewhere uncharted would be hard to keep secret during this Age of Discovery. And the Royal Navy love to stick their powdered noses where they don’t belong, especially when it comes to lost treasure. But I’m afraid, as astute as your observations are, you’re wrong.

“You see, no one is looking for this treasure, and no one has found the island. For one very simple reason.”

Elizabeth jutted her jaw out, “And what’s that?”

“They’re all dead,” Barbossa snarled, “The Black Pearl leaves no survivors, so who’s to say all that lost gold isn’t at the bottom of the ocean?”

She paused, “And the island?”

Barbossa grinned again, “Well, they don’t call it Isla de Muerte for nothing. I don’t think a living man has set foot on that island for ten years now. You might be the first.”

An all too familiar cold sense of dread settled over her. She thought about the burning ruins of the ship Will had smuggled himself on. About the shattered windows and crumbling walls of Port Royal. About the tales of pirates who pillaged and raped and murdered without discrimination, and the kind of place they might entrust their greatest treasure.

But it was overshadowed by fury. Rage and indignation. Her frustration as Will’s wooden sword landed softly on her arm as they sparred, too scared of hurting her to fight properly. Of her father’s concern as she listened in on details of raids on neighbouring islands. Of her tutor’s irritation with her inability to sew, or speak French, or play the piano.

Swallowing her fear, she stepped closer to Barbossa, “Your pathetic attempts at scaring me are no better than your magic tricks with the moon. I will be the first woman to land at Isla de Muerte, and sail away, free.”

While the crew laughed maniacally around them, Barbossa watched her with steely eyes and genuine consideration. She held her ground, no matter how much she wanted to wither and hide. After a few seconds, he leaned in close, the rum-soaked stink of his breath making her wince.

“You know, Miss Turner, I think you’d make a mighty fine pirate yourself, if ye haven’t already.”

Elizabeth furrowed her brow, “Haven’t already?”

“Aye,” he said shortly, leaning so close his hair scratched against her cheeks, “I think there’s more of ol’ Bootstrap in ya than blood, no maid I ever met could hold her own against a pirate, not ‘less she seen him before.”

He moved away so suddenly she flinched back, jaw grit. But Barbossa was walking away without a second look, leaving her to stand in the brightening sun, more confused than before.


	3. cutler beckett

The butt of the pistol felt heavy in her hand, solid iron weighing down her arm even as she held it straight and true, aimed directly at Beckett’s face. He seemed, for his part, unperturbed by the threat of violence, which unnerved her more than if he were screaming.

“Are you familiar with the superstitions of women at sea?” he asked, apropos of nothing.

Elizabeth glared, “That we are bad luck?”

“That you bring strife, chaos, war and death.”

“Certainly a bold accusation coming from you,” she shot back.

Beckett smiled, but the amusement didn’t reach his eyes, nor did it do much to disguise the disdain in his mouth, either.

“For years, Port Royal was a quiet and arguably even uneventful settlement, well guarded and well maintained. The pride of the colonies, an upstanding example of English superiority,” His eyes lingered on the map beside them, the paint still wet, glistening in the candlelight. “That was, until, we were bombarded by pirates, and the governor's daughter taken in the night.”

“My being taken from my home implies I was not at sea, your riddles are worthless-”

“But the events that preceded the attack were instigated by you, onboard the  _ Dependance  _ nearly ten years ago,” Beckett’s voice rose sharply, and she flinched.

“Pirates found this town, looking for you, after which half of Port Royal’s navy was deployed to search for you. You yourself watched the burning remains of the  _ Interceptor  _ sink to the bottom of the ocean, you watched the funerals of the men who were slaughtered onboard the  _ Dauntless _ . Did you ever consider that all that destruction and death had occurred in your wake?”

Her arm began to shake, the pistol wavering as Beckett stared at her with accusing eyes.

“I-” she began but Beckett cut her off again.

“And now, William Turner ventures forth to the seas in search of pirates, to save you. The same pirates James Norrington followed, a man whose ship and crew have not been seen or heard from in months.”

Elizabeth found her words dying in her mouth.

“Take the letters, deliver them to Turner. Deliver them to Sparrow, if you like,” Beckett’s voice had taken on an icy tone that made her shiver, the sounds crawling down the line of her spine like raindrops, “I doubt it will matter. If you return to sea, Miss Swann, I have no doubt they’ll both be dead soon anyway.”

Her feet walked her backwards of their own accord, Beckett’s stare following her all the way out the door, the weight of his words hanging over her like a sword.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this took far too long, and is abominably short. Mostly because I hate writing Beckett. Sorry about that. Also I started university, which is like... hard.


End file.
